Communications services, such as Internet, telephone, and television services, are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, businesses, and other subscribers. Networks form the basis for such communications services. Some networks provide instrumentation of the network to customers. This gives customers the ability to troubleshoot network-related problems but poses a great security risk since customers are able to locate and identify network components. Furthermore, these networks generally do not have a way to deal with high traffic volume from user-generated packets or signals without new equipment or aggressive filtering techniques. Other networks seek to provide protection against hackers and other security offenses by hiding network topology from customers. However, these networks lack the ability to allow customer troubleshooting. Therefore, as communications services reach more and more customers, it may be important to provide a system and method for providing a sensor overlay network that comprehensively and effectively allows customers the ability to troubleshoot or perform other network functions without sacrificing security, as well as efficiently manage high user-generated traffic.